A personal essay in which Russian emigre Masha Gessen ruminates on the culture’s tendency to privilege those who’ve suffered for a lack of choice — in becoming refugees, in picking their gender — and the choices that have impacted her life.

Molly Osberg’s harrowing essay — a mysterious illness that wastes away her body in days and nearly threatens her life — outlines in painstaking detail how (or if) she would have survived and recovered from her ordeal without medical insurance or a safety net.

When Alexander Chee’s father died at the age of 43 he didn’t leave behind a will, and his estate was divided among his wife and three children. When he turned 18, Chee was bequeathed a trust, and the first thing he bought was something he thought his father would want for him — a black Alfa Romeo.

Bullied as a child in school in the ’80s, Canadian poet George Murray once found solace in the make-believe world of Dungeons & Dragons, where he could become “a seven-foot-tall warrior who could punch the face off a troll.” At The Walrus, Murray writes of the role-playing game’s renaissance — about how it helped his blended family bond — and about how he’s “playing it forward” by acting as dungeon master for local families who want to learn to play.

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